Berlin, 1st May 2013
I’m Vasilis Tsapas. I’m from Greece. I’m a doctor.
I work for the state-run health system in a big hospital in Thessaloniki.
Our solidarity clinic is called KIR, which stands for Solidarity Medical Clinic.
The whole story began about 2 years ago,
when some doctors came together to help undocumented immigrants
who were on hunger strike,
they came up with the idea of setting up a medical clinic
in order to deal with the problem of people in Thessaloniki without health insurance.
Lots of people are taking part in this attempt.
All the people are volunteers. Nobody is paid.
There are doctors and also lots of private individuals.
There are different parts to the clinic:
the medical part; general medicine; pediatrists; dentists; other specialist doctors.
There are lots of private individuals who are employed by the organisation.
So we have appointments. There are people who do the administration,
who organise the appointments for every month.
There are lots of departments.
There is a big pharmacy where we collect medicines from private people.
They collect medicines for us.
In Thessaloniki many people have medicines that they don’t need anymore
because they have changed medication
or unfortunately because the person died and there is some medicine left over.
It is collected by the pharmacy and they bring them to us.
There are a big group of people in the clinic and they all collect medicines
and we give them to patients who don't have health insurance.
150-200 people work in the clinic. I don't know exactly, but there are a lot.
There are 2 dentist chairs and patients are seen for 10 hours a day, every day.
For that you need a lot of dentists.
With regards to the pharmacy we've really got a lot of medicines.
There is a big room in the clinic, and another flat, approx. 60sqm, the walls full of medicine.
For that you need many people.
I think the group of people looking after the chemists is at over 50. A lot of people.
But there are also indirect members that don't actually work in the clinic itself.
There are specialist doctors that support our cause, who support what we believe in.
We talk to them and they see patients that need the help of special medicine
that they can get in their practice without having to pay for it. That's for a lot of people.
There are also labs that take blood and do blood tests,
also for free, they are also many in Thessaloniki.
We get money from private individuals that aren’t connected to other things.
We get money from civil society groups.
We get money from unions.
From other solidarity organisations.
In Greece and also from other countries.
We put on events and collect donations from people.
We have absolutely nothing to do with the Greek state.
We don’t get any money from them.
We don’t get any money from the EU.
We don’t get money from companies.
We don’t have any sponsors.
We don’t take anything from anyone that has anything to do with the crisis situation we are in.
The thing is 'the crisis'.
Unemployment is rising.
We’re talking about a current unemployment rate in Greece of over 27%.
That is the official figure but it’s even higher.
Unemployment amongst young people under 30 years old is 57 or 60%
These people aren’t insured.
There are lots of people that aren’t unemployed –they have shops or small businesses,
and they actually have to pay their health insurance themselves.
But they don’t have the money to pay it because it can cost 300 euros a month.
So although they work they have no insurance.
Over 30% of people are uninsured in Greece, which is over about 3 million people.
These people can't even access the first level of healthcare and can't get treated in hospital.
There are also lots of immigrants in Greece
and lots of them are unemployed and lots of them don't have any papers.
So they land in Greece out of necessity.
They don't come because Greek is a rich country and they can earn lots of money.
Everyone knows Greece has big problems.
These people come to Greece out of necessitiy.
These people are not allowed to leave Greece and go to other european countries.
They have to stay there.
But they have health problems.
They are undocumented people.
The Greek state says that these people have no papers, they have to stay in detention camps.
That is the reality in Greece in 2013.
This solidarity clinic isn't just about health.
We put on lots of events, we stage interventions in hospitals.
We don't have the illusion that we will solve the health problem of Greece.
With regards to the hospitals, there is absolutely nothing we can do.
There are unemployed people, people without health insurance that can't go to hospital -
there is nothing we can do about that.
But we stage interventions in hospital, we've already done that twice,
in order to exert pressure, to say that all people, regardless of whether they have a job,
regardless of whether they're insured, regardless of whether they're Greek or immigrants,
regardless of whether they're immigrants without papers or with papers,
that they're all able to go to a hospital. That they are all able to get medicines.
These are all political decisions
that we make together when we meet in our assembly.
For example we have lots of problems with fascists in Greece, with Golden Dawn.
When anything happens, then we react.
We react with posters, we react through the press,
we sent out texts.
All of these are decisions, political decisions.
And when we meet in our Assembly, we write the texts,
or a group of 4-5 people draft a text that we discuss together in the Assembly.
There are lots of people who aren't comfortable about speaking in a big circle of people.
But we strongly believe that when we speak together in such a circle
that helps the whole process by which one becomes political.
There aren't these big personalities that get all the attention.
That is actually a problem for all these attempts.
It can sometimes be difficult to come to a common opinion, to make a unified decision.
But that doesn't have to be a problem.
We would just have to have another Assembly meeting, in the meantime we think about it,
it actually works.
The most important thing for us is how the people that use the service relate to it.
We try really hard in this project to not do charity work.
We want other people to understand this.
We don't have anything to do with charity.
We don't want to do that. That's not what we do.
We don't want other people to do that.
We talk about solidarity. That's the point we want to emphasise.
We have to help each other. We're all on the same level.
We try and do this and make other people understand this.
That we all come together and bring solidarity to the fore.
The point of our project is simply that at some point in the future, we won't be needed anymore.
That we don't need to be there anymore.
We believe very strongly that healthcare is the responsibility of the state.
But we believe that this healthcare must be free for everyone.
Whether you're employed or not, whether you're insured or not,
whether you're Greek or not, whether you're an immigrant with papers or without papers.
Healthcare must be free for all.
It is very important to ascertain that this is a problem in Greece,
but this problem won't just remain in Greece.
The crisis is not a crisis of lazy Greeks, bad Italians,
of Spanish people that have borrowed too much money from the banks and so on.
The reason for the crisis is the system. Capitalism.
The crisis is coming to all countries in Europe.
Sooner or later,
the crisis will come knocking at every country's door.